


A Little Game Called Murder

by goldenzingy46



Series: Serial Killers [7]
Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Alternate Universe - Detectives, Corpses, Creepy, Crime Scenes, Gen, Graphic Description of Corpses, Plot Twists, Serial Killers, Tension
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-01-18
Updated: 2021-01-18
Packaged: 2021-03-15 08:33:42
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 927
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28810425
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/goldenzingy46/pseuds/goldenzingy46
Summary: “Detective Inspector,” Harry greeted, offering out a hand. “Tom Riddle, was it? You’re highly praised.”Tom smiled blandly, shaking his hand but not removing his gloves. “Pleasure.”“I can’t wait to work with you,” he murmured, green eyes focused on Tom’s face. “And see if you’re as good as they say you are.”Harry smiled, brightly, and walked towards the police car as cheerily as ever.Tom’s skin prickled.Detective Inspector Tom Riddle finds the new unofficial consultant to be incredibly annoying. Harry Potter can't do any better than Tom can, yet he unveiled the serial killer Cedric Diggory when Tom couldn't.Tom is determined to find out how.
Series: Serial Killers [7]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1719148
Comments: 31
Kudos: 54





	A Little Game Called Murder

**Author's Note:**

> Beta'd by [AdrianaSlytherin20](https://archiveofourown.org/users/AdrianaSlytherin20)

Everybody liked Harry Potter. He was easily likeable, laughing at the smallest of things, eyes sparkling as he offered to help carry the files for an officer Tom didn’t care for, smiling the whole time. He made friends wherever he went, and it was easy to see how he’d charmed his way on to crime scenes without having any of the needed qualifications.

It had been seven months since Harry Potter had started helping solve crimes, and Tom Riddle had yet to find a way to get rid of him.

Worse than that, Harry Potter was good at noticing and solving things that they couldn’t have solved on their own.

“Detective Inspector,” Harry greeted, offering out a hand. “Tom Riddle, was it? You’re highly praised.”

Tom smiled blandly, shaking his hand but not removing his gloves. “Pleasure.”

“I can’t wait to work with you,” he murmured, green eyes focused on Tom’s face. “And see if you’re as good as they say you are.”

Harry smiled, brightly, and walked towards the police car as cheerily as ever.

Tom’s skin prickled.

***

The crime scene itself was nothing out of the ordinary, albeit a little gorier than expected, but the forensic scientist seemed almost terrified of every blood splatter.

There was definitely something wrong, but he couldn’t quite pinpoint it.

The thud of the car door closing announced the arrival of Harry Potter, and he swanned his way onto the scene, pausing in the doorway to evaluate the room.

Alcohol, mixing with the blood on the floor. Smashed bottles – some kind of expensive whisky. The coffee table was covered in scrapes and scratches. The cabinet was filled with cheap but strong liquor, and a pile of dog-eared paperback books had tipped over in the corner.

The room smelled _foul_.

The corpse itself had had its throat slit, and then someone had removed the lungs and lain them by its feet. The heart was missing from the chest cavity, and who knows where that had gone. The corpse’s nose was purple from burst blood vessels, and there were bruises littering its arms.

Tom could see what had happened like it had played in front of his eyes. They didn’t need Harry Potter.

And yet he spoke anyway, everyone pausing to stare avidly at this _boy_ who shouldn’t be here, enraptured by the most basic of skills.

“This man was obviously an alcoholic, and it was draining his money, from the cheap but string alcohol and the smashed bottles, which are more expensive than the corpse could afford, going from the state of the peeling wallpaper and threadbare sofas. He couldn’t afford to fix his coffee table, either.”

He paused for breath. “The man was drunk. He was staggering about his home, barely focused. The killer came in through this door, here—”

Harry gestured to the door on the right.

“—And then they seized the victim by the wrists, who, although drunk, attempted to fight our killer off. Those bruises are defensive wounds.”

Tom sarcastically applauded, each slow clap ringing through the room.

Harry raised an eyebrow. “What is it, Detective Inspector?” He asked, softly. “What did I miss?”

“A perfectly sound analysis,” Ton began, stepping forwards, “But you missed something vital.”

He bent down, plucking a book from the pile. “These books have been read many, many, times. They’ve been cared for the best they can, for their age and number of usages. The pile was knocked over, but dry, unlike the rest of the room.”

He tapped the lock on the cabinet. “There’s a lock on the doors to it. It stops him from getting more when he’s already drunk, and you don’t read when drunk, do you? This alcoholic was trying to _stop_.”

Rolling his eyes, Harry said, “Beautifully done, but is it relevant to the crime scene?”

Tom scowled, infuriated. “This set up wouldn’t have led him to be as drunk as he was tonight. Somebody didn’t want him to stop.”

The younger officer frowned. “But our victim lived alone. He had no friends, no family. He rarely left the house. Who could’ve encouraged him to keep drinking?”

“And _that_ ,” Tom said, “Is what our dear friend Harry, here, has missed. The killer wanted him drunk. The killer _knew_ his victim, and had been visiting regularly, in secret.”

Harry looked at Tom, and Tom saw a gleam in his eyes that made him feel like Harry had judged him, and Tom had been found worthy.

“Ronald Weasley, alcoholic after the tragic demise of his entire family three years ago, trying to stop and move on with his life because that’s what they would’ve wanted,” Harry enunciated each word, soft and almost like he was telling a secret. “But someone wouldn’t let him stop, and he attacked them as they entered. What changed?”

Tom blinked, slowly. “His ‘friend’ brought in the expensive whisky.”

They looked at the shattered bottles.

“Far too expensive for Ronald to afford. They’ve been stolen, perhaps stolen from someone who was murdered, and he realised. Realised his ‘friend’ was a bad egg,” Harry said.

Tom glanced at the chest cavity, at the lungs on the floor. “It’s a copycat to Cedric Diggory’s case, perhaps. Maybe he had an accomplice – he pleaded ‘not guilty’ all the way up until the end, and usually serial killers are desperate to show off at _some_ point.”

Harry looked at him, and he seemed almost disappointed.

“So, who’s the killer, Harry Potter?” Tom asked.

“Well, that’s obvious,” he said, straightening up and folding his hands behind his back. “I am.”

**Author's Note:**

> You could... poke your head into my [Discord server](https://discord.gg/37bXdGW)? I don't bite (much)!
> 
> Alternately, you could pop into my mess of a Tumblr [here](https://goldenzingy46.tumblr.com/), or my writing Tumblr [here](https://goldenzingy46butwriteblr.tumblr.com/)!
> 
> Comments and kudos sustain me :)
> 
> [for bribe related reasons, i ask you to go and have a look at user [alfisha](https://archiveofourown.org/users/alfisha)'s fics, and they are a damn good writer]


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